Mozilla Kills Modern Version of Firefox

Mozilla on Friday abruptly announced that it was pulling the plug on what it called Firefox for Metro, the Modern version of its web browser for Windows 8.x and RT. The reason? Virtually no one is testing the software, indicating that Microsoft's new mobile environment is dead in the water.

"From what we can see, Metro's adoption is pretty flat," Mozilla Firefox VP Johnathan Nightingale writes in a blog post explaining the strategy change. "On any given day we have, for instance, millions of people testing pre-release versions of Firefox desktop, but we've never seen more than 1000 active daily users in the Metro environment."

Note: "Metro" was the original name for the mobile environment that Microsoft included first with Windows 8. But after getting sued over the name, Microsoft stopped using it, opting instead for such terms as "immersive," "Modern," and "Windows Store." This naming silliness is only a small part of the debacle that is this mobile environment.

Nightingale says that while Mozilla worked for two years to deliver a beta version of Firefox for Metro, "shipping a 1.0 version, given the broader context we see for the Metro platform, would be a mistake." It's just not popular enough.

"We could ship it, but it means doing so without much real-world testing," he writes. "That's going to mean lots of bugs discovered in the field, requiring a lot of follow up engineering, design, and QA effort. To ship it without doing that follow up work is not an option. If we release a product, we maintain it through end of life. When I talk about the need to pick our battles, this feels like a bad one to pick: significant investment and low impact."

"Instead, we pull it," he continues. "This opens up the risk that Metro might take off tomorrow and we'd have to scramble to catch back up, but that's a better risk for us to take than the real costs of investment in a platform our users have shown little sign of adopting."

While I'm sure some will try to undercut this problem by belittling Mozilla or Firefox in some way, that kind of argument is wrongheaded: These guys supported the platform and just didn't see the usage. And that is a very real problem. Part of the issue, of course, is Microsoft's wrong-headed decision to limit how browser makers can build high-quality products for the Modern environment (i.e. it's impossible), something that makes Windows RT in particular less desirable.

Discuss this Article 98

To be honest I gave it a shot on my Surface... I used it for a few hours but it just wasn't good, so I didn't really see a reason to continue using it because it offered nothing that IE11 metro didn't give me. I'm curious to know how many people did what I did.

The product is awful and Mozilla doesn't have money to improve it. They are running out of money with the development of Firefox OS. Mozilla announced that they will show adds in "about:newtab", that's desperation, now you see more ads in Firefox than in Chrome, how ironic.

Same, actually, but on my Venue Pro 8. I was even running the nightly Aurora build for a while. I use FF on my desktop, so what I really wanted was bookmark and add-on syncing with a good touch interface. The interface was decent enough I guess (still not as good as touch IE), but I couldn't access my bookmarks (or if I could I had to use the on-screen keyboard and type which kind of defeats the purpose) and my add-ons were no where to be found. So I went back to IE. *shrug*

Plus I just don't have the time these days to do proper testing, so I went back to the release version and waited for the Modern UI to appear in the release...

IE blows Firefox out of the water, especially on an Atom tablet, in terms of performance, but I have a decade of bookmarks and my addons in Firefox, so am loathe to change.

I currently use IE for general browsing and Firefox when I need NoScript or my bookmarks, when on my tablet. Now I will probably look at going 100% IE - and this from someone who swapped to Firefox when it was still called Phoenix... :-(

No usage? As much as I like FF as it's been my only desktop browser for a while now, I've recently dumped it in favor of modern IE because of IE's ease of tab syncing between my Surface 2 and pc. I only use it now if I have to.

The reason I didn't use the beta was because it was horrible. Fact was it didn't work right, it was missing lots of features, it wasn't available for my Surface 2, to use it meant disabling modern IE which works great. It just wasn't an option to use a horrible effort.

Add that is why I didn't use it. Not because I wasn't needing or wanting to.
Unfortunately this is a blow, but hardly a loss as IE works pretty good. I guess we just forget they're intentions of bringing about their own tablet os in this whole picture.

The reality is it was never good on Android or IOS either and they can keep their worthless, slow effort.

Neither one if very good in the Metro enviro. I have over 6000 bookmarks nested in 7 deep folder arrays. None of the bookmark set ups show this relationship in a format that is useable. Need to have a regular Folder Tree to see where you are in relation to all the folder/bookmarks. Get lost to easy with just bunch of square icons scrolling. Still need the "tree" set up to see relative position of folders etc. Metro sucks at this on all browsers so far.

Is it belittling Mozilla to point out that it was only available in x86 and was, well, really kinda bad? It certainly wasn't better than metro IE, so why would you use it if you have access to the full desktop version anyway? If anything this is maybe also proving people don't really value a 'touch UI' in browsers.

I don't know about people. I know that for me the browser is the main place I value touch. IE11 touch ui works really well and I can scroll, zoom, and select way faster than I ever could with a mouse. With a laptop, you don't have to get gorilla arm. Just keep your arm on the table and use the lower corner of the screen to do scroll, zoom, etc gestures.

This is exactly the point. Mobile browser that worked only with PCs. And it was bad. Slow, crashing and absolutely no benefits over IE. Actually, if you use desktop Firefox with touch screen PC it will show you how bad Firefox is even on desktop. The stepped scrolling and zooming with mouse hides the lag, but with touch gestures its so terrible to use. As Chrome's marketshare continues to rise, Firefox is more and more done because Google basically pays for the development.

Yeah, I won't blame Mozilla for this, it fall purely on MS's doorstep. Why they would put even tighter restrictions on their modern environment that even Apple does just does not make sense. To make it worse, it creates a hole in the OS that starts a spiral; developers dropping out because users are not there means users will not adopt because the platform does not meet their expectations, and down the rabbit hole things go. I am not sure who over at MS was making these decisions, but if it wasn't Sinofsky I hope they went away like he did.

This browser wasn't very good. I've tried the betas and there were tons of problems every time I tried. Maybe the problem was on Microsoft's end. At any rate, iOS and Android have done just fine with essentially just one browser each and there's no reason why Mozilla can't make the desktop version touch capable like IE.

Fundamentally if it has been a road blocker for iPxd then why do u think it will be a blocker for RT? RT is not plain old Windows but designed for finished tablets & limited uses scenarios. Microsoft naming convention is really to blame here.

I think the central problem is only allowing a single Modern browser. I have multiple browsers on my Windows Phone. I thought about checking out Firefox, but wasn't sure if it would disable IE in the Modern UI.

They may find that if its in the Store, they might get more usage, but MS is a problem here by limiting users. Give us the ability to use multiple Modern browsers and we might end up with multiple options.

Wow I think this is a terrible decision. Microsoft is not going to abandon the Modern interface - they will just continue to make it better and more powerful. By version 9 I will be willing to bet it is going to be amazing.

Currently there is a Chrome version that works in the modern environment (a terrible version but it still works) and IE. So that is one more feature that they will be lacking that Chrome has. Firefox is falling behind Chrome and this just helps them fall behind more. They will eventually need to catch up again in the new interface.

Tablets and phones is were windows will see the most growth. The desktop market is shrinking. If that is were Mozilla wants to reside, more power to them. I used to upgrade my desktop every three years. I am into my 5th year with the current setup and have no plans to upgrade because every piece of software I have works great on it. I did buy a surface pro and a couple of laptops and would not imagine buying a laptop without touch. My preferred browser is the metro IE and I only use the desktop version or chrome when a site doesn't work properly and that is getting pretty rare for me.

First, firefox is falling behind - they are missing a lot of things that IE and Chrome already have.

Second, Microsoft is not ditching the Metro interface. 8.1 update 1 shows the complete opposite. They are making the metro interface more and more usable on the desktop. They will not abandon it. They already said in 9 it will have a version 2.0. Plus at that time x-box, phone, and desktop will have the same back api's so Mozilla would be able to get it on all three easily. Now they will have to start over.

Apple limits third party browsers in iOS while very annoying has not affected their sales.

The problem here is that you would have to be the biggest tool in the world to use the modern version of IE on a Desktop computer. The same sort of tool who would use Modern Apps on a big screen desktop PC. Yet this is Microsoft's business plan.

So who does that leave to use Modern Firefox, Surface users? The few hundred thousand people who only bought one because it was discounted to less than half the original price yet the product still fills warehouses.

Where did you get a few hundred thousand. I believe the last reported sales shows several million people bought a surface. Plus the people who bought windows tablets from other makers. You also can't discount laptop users. Touch does work well when using a laptop. By the way, there are metro apps that do work well on a desktop. Just avoid the one's the are poorly designed for mouse use. By your big screen comment, I assume you are referring to the full screen nature of metro. I almost always use apps fully maximized and Microsoft's telemetry data shows that how most people use their computers. Having a bunch of small windows arranged on a screen isn't something I see very often.

I don't have a Windows tablet but outside of games, I've yet to come across a singe Metro app that I would leave the desktop to use, on either my desktop or laptop running Win8.1.

Many are painfully inferior to the desktop versions or worse, the versions on iOS and Android. It would likely be different if I had a Windows tablet and was more concerned about good touch support but that isn't the case. Microsoft took so long to get serious about the modern tablet market (as opposed to devices using XP or 7 and requiring a stylus to operate) that I'd already invested in a refurb Asus and a Nook HD+. By the time I spend money on such indulgences again, if ever, Microsoft may no longer be an option.

I'm not so sure we can conclude that the issue is With adaption of the Metro environment, it might just be that Metro-IE is good enough that people simply don't see the need to og looking for alternatives.

The main reason why Chrome, Firefox and Opera got a foothold on the desktop in the first place was that IE 6-8 were terrible browsers.But With IE11/Metro-IE that's no longer the case.

A couple of other possibilities exist.
1 - that users of Firefox are not Modern UI users so therefore wouldn't test it
2 - that Modern UI users like the IE11 and are resistant to change.

Probably others as well. I use the Modern UI of FIrefox as my default in that environment because I prefer some of the placement of the UI but there is nothing wrong with IE there.
It is true that Microsoft has made it difficult for others players to be there and that just makes it that much more difficult for the user base to expand.

I would guesstimate 95% of Windows 8 users use the desktop, 5% use the modern interface/modern apps on tablets (probably underestimating). The desktop is a much more sophisticated environment, which significantly more people use, and will probably stay this way. The modern apps do offer some useful and rich features, but are limited. A lot of the modern apps in the Windows store I've seen are basic to downright dumb in contrast to desktop programs. For instance, Photoshop Express is just a slightly more enhanced editing tool that's found in the Windows photo app. I think the idea of modern apps replacing desktop apps is still farfetched and are all mostly for consuming content. I still strongly think Microsoft should separate the modern environment from the desktop. As an example there would be two versions of Windows, Windows Modern 9 (only the modern UI) and Windows 9 (desktop with modern, but modern can be disabled). Windows Modern 9 would be only the modern UI without the desktop, and would be based on NT. Windows 9 would be the desktop with modern, but modern would can be disabled and there would be a optional revamped start menu. The bottom line is Windows 8 is a down right flop and Microsoft needs to do something like separating modern and desktop into two versions, because one thing can't appease all.

Did the beta actually support Windows RT yet though? I had thought that it did not. One of the things I don't like is Windows restricts the modern environment to only 1 browser. I would hate to have my default browser a beta version of Firefox that could potentially be unstable and then not be able to use IE at all (except in desktop mode).

This is awful news for Microsoft. They will have a lot of explaining to do at Build. The Modern api is crippled, a rather small subset of Win32, with multiple languages that are interchangeably supported or relegated to limbo, to code against a moving target UI. The desktop is abansonware so that is no longer a viable target for developers.

Is one to stay with Microsoft, a company that takes a year to find a CEO in a Keystone public search while everything Microsoft is frozen because no one can make decisions in the midst of a corporate hairpin turn.

Paul, the Window Store app is the right name. I realized this after update 1 to Win 8.1 as both the modern app and the desktop app can be pinned on the Taskbar. With Win 9, the distinction will be even smaller. Eventually to an end user at least, the major difference is that modern apps are installed from Windows store.

I registered just to reply to this article.
I think your view on this matter is wrong.
Why? Well, when was the last time that Mozilla has competently delivered a product?
Yeah, Firefox3.0 6 years ago.
--------
This is the company/organization (are they actually non-profit?) that has failed again and again to deliver anything substantial for the mobile market.
One can perhaps ask Nightingale why firefox on android is still performing like a slug, and he will have absolutely nothing to say.
Blaming metro may work this time. But it won't change the fact Mozilla has been utterly incompetent to deliver anything competitive in the last 5 years.

The problem isn't limited to browser makers, though it's pretty acute for them. Mobile apps suck - flat out, no bones about it. The only way around that is to be in a first- or second-party arrangement with preferential treatment.

I appreciate the more robust security model, but if the app needs to pass certification to get offered, then the sandbox needs to get opened up in more meaningful ways. Once third parties stand a chance of making money in the ecosystem, the antagonism will fade.

Also, this sort of thing is exactly why Ballmer is out, and a mandate for Nadella's next 100 days.

I don't understand why this is a bad thing. I don't use any other browser in Windows... Particularly win 8. Why does this not mean that most win 8 users see another browser as point less, since IE meets all our needs.

I didn't test this because Modern IE is a perfectly good browser already. I'm sure that in the desktop-only world people don't care about anything other than desktop browsers, which is a market already well served. But in the world of tablet-friendly browsers IE does a really good job already. I don't think that fact can be overlooked entirely. If LOVEFiLM deliver a Modern app then I'd be far more interested because one doesn't exist already. But I don't need two browsers, just one that does the job.

To be honest, this particular case doesn't say very much about the state of the Metro / Modern / whatever environment.

It's not surprising that Firefox for Metro saw barely any user adoption, for a couple of reasons.

The big one is that there are millions of people who use Firefox, but only a small subset of those subscribe to the beta update channel.

The millions of people using the stable build of Firefox never had a chance to use Firefox for Metro, because it never entered the stable channel.

Firefox for Metro has only been in the beta channel for a couple of weeks, and its existence wasn't signalled in any way, except for one extra option in the menu labelled "Relaunch in Firefox for Windows 8 Touch". If you open Firefox beta from the start screen it doesn't open in Modern mode, it opens on the desktop. The only way to open the modern version is to open the desktop one, open up the menu and hit the relaunch in Metro mode option.

So even for those using the beta version of Firefox, unless you were keeping track of the release notes (which requires effort since Firefox updates silently in the background) you probably wouldn't even know that the feature had hit beta. And prior to the past couple of weeks, you'd have to be using the Aurora alpha channel to have access to it.

I use Firefox beta as my daily driver browser on a desktop PC and a touchscreen Ultrabook. I also have a Surface 2 on which I (obviously) use IE11.

When the Metro version hit beta, I gave it a try on said touchscreen ultrabook. Problem was, due to lack of testing or whatever, it simply wasn't a good browser. The UI was slow, and the layout was just plain worse than IE11 (e.g. rather than IE11's swipe to navigate back, FF for metro has a permanent large back button on the left side of the page). And once you set Firefox to launch in Metro, it won't launch in the desktop again without you hitting the "Relaunch in Desktop" option in the metro app.

So the result of that experiment was that I used FF for Metro for a grand total of 5 minutes and switched it back to the desktop mode (which is fairly usable with touch anyway).

So the short of it is that Mozilla launched a Metro browser that was just plain worse than IE11, to a small subset of their users, with nothing signalling that the feature was even available, and then they are surprised that it doesn't see use.

The state of the modern ecosystem is an entirely separate issue, but this particular case doesn't really reflect on that at all.

I suppose the bigger question is anybody using Windows 8 apps? (or the interface that used to be called metro)

I guess that if you have a surface or a surface 2 then there is not a lot of choice. However I have pretty much used Windows 8 since it came out and had the preview on a VM before that. I haven't found any compelling reason to launch a Windows 8 app.

Actually the main things I might occasionally jump into are apps suggested in the Windows Weekly podcast. I don't really like the adverts that have crept into the OS. I don't like them on Xbox either but as most of them seem to be game trailers so far I don't feel annoyed yet.

As we see the recent changes to Windows 8 drifting back to helping desktop users then is the direction of travel well away from metro apps. I get that 8.1 update 1 will provide some mouse control to metro but does it even matter. Once people default boot to desktop and the start screen becomes something like OS X Launchpad what is the future of metro.

Metro seems to be going into a twilight zone where it fades into the background of 'apps' that a basically pinned websites or advert-ware. A beautiful interface with no actual functions or tasks you want to perform other than saying 'doesn't it look beautiful'.

The Windowsphone app environment is actually the reverse of this situation. The apps are functional, mature and beautiful.

My wife has Windows 8. Her HP AMD processor laptop steadfastly refuses to upgrade to 8.1. She was really annoyed by IE defaulting to the metro app and I had to get it back to the desktop app. All she uses metro for is to run the desktop. There is quite literally nothing useful to her that she has found in the Windows store. She has a Yahoo mail account so I may introduce her to that just to see if she likes it. She hasn't even customised he start screen because she is a 'normal' user and pretty much understands the desktop interface. leaving her to her own devices means she runs metro free.

So to answer my own question. I suspect almost no-one uses metro and I suspect Microsoft know this. I wonder when the news becomes public?

People with the right hardware use it. On my surface, I try to stay in metro as much as possible. I have banking/finance apps, news apps, ebook/magazines apps, cooking apps, etc. It's a joy to use compared to the desktop and my surface gets the most use these days because of it.

On my non-touch desktop computer, I still use metro, but admittedly less. The thing I love there is Skype. I like being able to snap it to the left and not have a messy window that gains and loses focus as I'm doing other things. The top part of the window shows video and the bottom shows chat. It's perfect.

And there really is something to say for large live tiles. Got home late from dinner Saturday night and saw that my boss had sent me an email from across the room because my start screen was visible (it always is). Should have seen it on my phone but didn't. This saved me a lot of trouble the next day. I find the start screen very useful, even if you're on a desktop. Once I start working I don't use it but it's awesome to log in to a PC and see everything at a glance.

I knew of this beta and didn't care to even try it. I'm perfectly happy with IE11 in the modern environment. I get the feeling a number of users feel the same way. There's no real advantage to change it up...ie11 is suitable for most.

People, especially developers, are simply used to Microsoft supplying them with lots of choices--even UI choices--as opposed to the Apple metric of "our way or the highway." I'm not surprised that Mozilla is finding next to no interest in this, but I am very surprised that Mozilla thought it might be viable in the first place.

What is even more worrisome to me: is Microsoft still capable of correctly gauging and acting on customer demand? It seems as if the Microsoft crew understands nothing else it should clearly understand that Microsoft is not Apple and therefore Microsoft does not have Apple's customer base. Apple customers are used to continuously getting yanked all over creation for this or that "critical transition"--Microsoft customers are used to a smooth ramp of customer/developer, user-friendly & adequate options--one size does *not* fit all, etc. It seems as if Microsoft has forgotten a great deal since it shipped the best-selling OS in its history (Win7.) How is it possible to forget so much so quickly?

I have to sort of laugh at myself in sheer amazement. Prior to actually buying and installing Win 8 in Jan '13 I was foursquare behind the "start page" and some of the rest of it. It didn't take me long, however, to appreciate how poor it all works in a non-touch environment, though. Still, I figured they'd soon rectify the errors as everyone leading the Win8 project (Ballmer, Sinofsky) left the company either completely or on a day-to-day work basis. "OK, I thought--now they're going to fix this..." But, by George, they didn't fix it and they have yet to fix it!

With every update I thought it'd get fixed, but with every update Microsoft demonstrates an almost lunatic disdain for the tens of millions of its customers who have been screaming for months and telling Microsoft what *they'd* be interested in seeing--which is Win8 with a precision mouse-keyboard UI--a non-touch UI a few notches better than Win7. (It would have been child's play for Microsoft to address *both markets*--the touch and the non-touch, with Win8. Good grief--Microsoft's non-touch installed base has got to be at least 20x the size of its touch market.)

I mean, what? Did Microsoft think Win7 was so popular because its customers *hated and loathed* the Win7, non-touch UI? Microsoft has been so incredibly silent on these issues, even while it claims to be listening while it lets another update go by without rectifying the situation to *everyone's* satisfaction! Apple rules don't jive very well with Microsoft customers--if they did then Apple would have many, many more Mac customers than it does at present. But Microsoft customers have looked to Microsoft because Apple traditionally doesn't come close to meeting their needs. *Somebody* at Microsoft has got to know this, wouldn't you think? I mean, just how many more major developer drop outs from "Metro" does Microsoft need to see?

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